Grow A Vegetable Garden

Planting vegetables can be relaxing and fun and it’s always rewarding to be able to harvest the fruits of your own labor. It may seem easy enough – you dig a hole and plant a seedling or dig a shallow trench and scatter the seeds – but there are a few things you’ll need to know if you want to have a good first harvest.

Keep it small – Most first time gardeners fail to take yield into consideration when they’re planning their first garden. When planting vegetables you’re going to get a lot more than one tomato or one cucumber or one bean per plant. You may get a dozen or more tomatoes for each tomato plant in your garden. Who’s going to eat all those tomatoes?

Plan your plot – When planting vegetables it’s important to remember that some plants grow up and tall, like corn, and other plants spread out on a vine, like cucumbers. You need to allow plenty of room for your vine plants to spread out and you don’t want your taller plants casting a shadow over your whole garden. Plot your garden before planting your vegetables to make sure there’s enough room for everything to grow properly.

Try something new – Your first inclination when planting vegetables will probably be to plant things that you know you like to eat. Try planting something new and interesting, too. If you know you like cherry tomatoes try planting some heirloom tomatoes as well. Go ahead and plant onions but maybe plant some radishes, too. It’s always fun to try new things – especially if you grew them yourself.

Be prepared to work – There’s a lot of work involved in raising a garden. You need to prepare the soil first and then you need to tend your garden every day – pulling out weeds, thinning out seedlings, making sure it has enough water. You’ll have something to do nearly every day during growing season so make sure you’re prepared to stick with it.